Kaley Pavan’s eight-year-old son Lincoln is a superfan of Nerf battles.
This Saturday, Lincoln invites fellow Nerf enthusiasts to take part in the ultimate Nerf battle at Nicholas Sheran Park, as Kaley hopes the community will come out, “to make my little man’s dream come true.”
Lincoln was born with Down syndrome and at three-and-a-half years old, he was diagnosed with leukemia.
“After two-and-a-half years of fighting, he went into a medical remission in 2023. Sadly, in March of last year, Lincoln relapsed. His marrow was 98 per cent leukemic this time. He underwent CAR-T cell therapy and is recently back in remission,” his mother explains.
According to Kaley, Lincoln had a lot of long stays in the hospital. “I’m talking over 200-plus days at a time,” she remarks.
“During those times, we had to get creative for fun and that’s when Nerf wars became a thing,” Kaley adds. “We would hide all around the unit and play Nerf and soccer together just to pass the time.”
Then, Lincoln found Nerf battles on YouTube and became obsessed with them.
“He’s partially non-verbal. However, when he sees this big battle happen on Saturday, he’s going to light up brighter than the sun,” she notes.
Kaley says she was born in Calgary, but lived in Warner until she was 16-years-old and now calls Lethbridge home.
On Saturday, Kaley says participants can meet at the Nicholas Sheran School parking lot with the event running from 1 to 3 p.m.
“If everyone just wants to bring their own Nerf gun and bullets and whatever they want. I know a lot of people have face masks and things like that,” she says. “Come out and have some fun.”
Kaley notes a decision was made to make one of Lincoln’s dreams come true. “He hasn’t really had the time to be able to go out and meet friends because he’s been in the hospital so much. We figured this would be a good opportunity for him to see what a community really is.”
“It should be fun and pretty chaotic at the same time,” she jokes. “But I think it’ll be really good.”
For more information you can email Kaley at kaley-pavan@hotmail.co.uk.
